I just finished reading Frank Scoblete's "I Am a Dice Controller," and I really enjoyed it. Scoblete has a dry style, sort of a Hemingway rhythm with some Hunter Thompson sensibilities.
The thing is, I bought this book as a gift for my craps enthusiast friend, Al. I know absolutely nothing about craps -- I haven't ever played the game. Not once. But that didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book at all. That's what was impressive -- you can know nothing about craps and totally "get it."
The other interesting element to this book is that I buy the narrative -- I believe the author. Some people (and some on this forum) have occasionally leveled charges at Scoblete regarding his craps narratives, but this comes across as pretty much genuine. Yeah, he doesn't spend as much time on his losses as his wins, but you get the feeling he's mostly a straight shooter (little double entendre there, folks).
Anyway, it was an intriguing book that you can blow through in a couple of sittings, and I can almost guarantee that you'll be entertained.
I have a writing background, and I'm a bit of an oldster, so just a couple more comments. The hardest thing in writing is to make everything look effortless, and Scoblete pulls this off. If you are 50+, you may remember something called The Fog Index, which was used to measure "ease or difficulty of reading" back in the 50's and early 60's. Scoblete manages to have a very low Fog Index while still being relatively sophisticated. Tough to do.
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